Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Prologue
- Introduction: English Protestantism at the dawn of the seventeenth century
- Part I The Church of Rome
- 1 ‘This immortal fewde’: anti-popery, ‘negative popery’ and the changing climate of religious controversy
- 2 The rejection of Antichrist
- 3 Rome as a true church
- 4 The errors of the Church of Rome
- 5 Unity and diversity in the Roman communion: inconsistency or opportunity?
- 6 Visibility, succession and the church before Luther
- 7 Separation and reunion
- Part II The Reformed Churches
- Conclusion
- Select bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History
7 - Separation and reunion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Prologue
- Introduction: English Protestantism at the dawn of the seventeenth century
- Part I The Church of Rome
- 1 ‘This immortal fewde’: anti-popery, ‘negative popery’ and the changing climate of religious controversy
- 2 The rejection of Antichrist
- 3 Rome as a true church
- 4 The errors of the Church of Rome
- 5 Unity and diversity in the Roman communion: inconsistency or opportunity?
- 6 Visibility, succession and the church before Luther
- 7 Separation and reunion
- Part II The Reformed Churches
- Conclusion
- Select bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History
Summary
‘NON FUGIMUS SED FUGAMUR’: CHANGING VIEWS OF THE FLIGHT FROM ROME
As we have seen, Jacobean writers across the whole doctrinal spectrum agreed on the importance of Revelation 18.4 (the flight from Babylon). Not only was it seen as a text which justified separation from the Church of Rome, but it was also interpreted as a divine command which could not be ignored. This was a point argued, not just by moderate puritans such as Willet and Bernard, but also by Calvinist conformists such as Powel, Hakewill and Bedell. Even an avant-garde conformist such as Andrewes argued that the Roman Church was Babylon. It did not exhaust the possible lines of defence, however. When William Bedell confronted the issue of what authority the Protestants had for leaving Rome, he resorted first to the familiar passage from Revelation. This was a justification which was sufficient in itself. But this did not mean that other arguments could not be made, and Bedell chose to buttress his position further by deciding to settle the argument ‘at the Bar of Reason out of the common Principles of Christian Doctrine’. Romanists could always quibble about whether the papal monarchy was Babylon and therefore, said Bedell, ‘let us for the present set aside the Mystical Arguments from this place, and all other Prophetical Circumstances’.Similarly, Anthony Wotton's popular Runne from Rome, which dealt specifically with the separation from Rome, bore the text of Revelation 18.4 on its title-page, but avoided discussing the issue of Antichrist because (as Wotton explained) it was a long controversy which had already been sufficiently disputed elsewhere.
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- Catholic and ReformedThe Roman and Protestant Churches in English Protestant Thought, 1600–1640, pp. 322 - 374Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995